


Where Are You Now?

by hummerhouse



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003)
Genre: Desire, Loneliness, M/M, Turtlecest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 11:32:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7506631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hummerhouse/pseuds/hummerhouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Disclaimer: The TMNT are not mine. No money being made.<br/>Word Count: 510 One shot, based on the Shredder-Raph Series by Sherenelle<br/>Rated: PG-13<br/>Summary: Shredder-Raph's musings one late afternoon as he looks over the city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Are You Now?

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this preview image which is a creation of Sherenelle's from DeviantArt. There is a haunting aspect to this picture that would not leave me alone.  
> 

            His city.

            It sprawled in all directions, preening beneath his gaze.  The city he’d loved and called home ever since the day he’d been mutated, so many year ago.

            Raphael had experienced every aspect of this city.  He had lived in shadows beneath its skyscrapers, learning everything there was to know about its teeming underground world.  He had lived in sub-par conditions in a state of poverty that in his youth had often left him with an empty belly.

            He had been hungry, cold, frightened, exhausted; but he had never been alone.

            There by his side had always been family.  The brothers he loved with his entire being.  His father who had raised them, whom he respected and whose admiration he had sought so diligently.

            Though he had done all that was asked of him, Raphael never felt as though he’d captured that elusive recognition.  And then he had fallen out of favor; had done the unthinkable and denounced his father, his Master.  All because his father had forced Leonardo to kill in order to purify himself of desires for another of his kind.  In truth, for Raphael.

            Raphael had left his home and family then and entered another world, the one of light.  With the help of friends he began to make a new life.  To bury his pain, Raphael had joined with those who had once been enemies and made a place for himself.  He had risen in the ranks from soldier to leader, he had earned recognition and acceptance.

            Then Raphael had gained the crown and become the Shredder.  He had power, money, followers.  He was never hungry, he was never in want of any material item.

            But he did not have the one thing that mattered most to him.  He did not have his brothers.  In a vast new world filled with people who would jump at his every command, Raphael was lonely.  He trusted no one the way he had trusted his brothers; with his body, his mind, his soul.

            As the wind whipped past him, lifting his tattered cape and sending the ragged ends of his black head band fluttering, Raphael looked to the horizon.  In his heart he felt a sadness and a longing for one brother most of all.

            In his mind’s eye Leonardo appeared, not as Raphael had last seen him, but as the unburdened Leonardo.  The one who had lowered his guard from time to time and had allowed Raphael to see his true heart.  Leonardo had honored his unyielding father, had turned his back on his feelings, on Raphael.  On himself.

            But Raphael did not hate him for that.  He could never hate him.  In that fleeting moment before he had stormed from their lives, Raphael had seen Leonardo’s pain. 

Raphael had loved Leonardo then and loved him still. Missed him.  Needed him. 

In Raphael’s thoughts ran the same refrain, the one he repeated night after night.

            _“Where are you now?”_

            Perhaps it was time to stop asking the question and do something about it.


End file.
